Happy New Year!

Here are some pictures from our trip to Sunriver for Christmas; unfortunately my camera died so I wasn't able to take as many as I would have liked. But here are the ones I did manage to get!

Tanner in front of the Christmas tree!

The house was perfect, I love Sunriver! It had room for everyone to sleep, and a nice living room area with a fireplace and TV... very cozy! :)

You couldn't even see the floor after we opened gifts! We did a secret Santa system for Christmas, which worked out really well. Everyone drew a name at Thanksgiving, and we had a $40 limit for each person. It was really nice just focusing on getting gifts for one person, definitely made the Christmas season less stressful!

Kyle with one of his gifts... a bobblehead Joey Harrington! (He used to play quarterback for the Ducks)

This is the house that we stayed at... it didn't snow until the morning we left of course!

Picture of the bunkbed room... Kyle and I slept on the full bed on the bottom right.

Kitchen!

Kyle and I...

We arrived at the house late on Christmas Eve night, but were still up very early on Christmas morning! It was such a relaxing day, which was so nice. Everyone just kind of lazed around, drank coffee, and hung out until lunchtime. Sue and Pam put together a delicious lunch, and then after that we opened gifts! The rest of the day we watched movies, ate leftovers... it was a great day! :) The day after Christmas everyone went snowboarding and skiing except for Sue and I, we went shopping instead! We met up with Lindsey and Brittney, Bryan's fiance and Tanner's girlfriend, in Bend for some after Christmas sales. I really appreciated Sue hanging with me, and we had a fun girls day! :)

I was sad to leave Sunday morning, but we got to meet up with our friend Tom in Bend and have lunch and catch up, which was nice. We also went and visited Kyle's cousin Jeff at his girlfriend Valerie's house in Sisters, which is a small town next to Bend. Jeff and Valerie live in Minnesota, so it's awesome to catch up with them when we can! Jeff's brother AJ (Kyle's other cousin) is expecting a baby girl with his girlfriend Mindy in April, so everyone's getting excited for all the new additions to the Hall family. Overall, it was a really fun Christmas weekend with the Halls and the Hays!

On Tuesday Chelsea came down via train to visit us and stay until New Year's... unfortunately, that was the absolute WORST night ever for her to come down! It started to snow in the afternoon, and by the time her train arrived and I got off work, Portland was an absolute nightmare, the worst traffic I've ever seen. It was taking about an hour and a half to get out of the PARKING GARAGE, and that was before you even joined the mess on the freeways! When me and my co-workers heard that, we decided that we'd rather wait together in the cafeteria and eat some dinner then just sit in our cars for hours, so I had Chelsea hop on the max rail to the hospital while we did that because there was no way I could get to her by car. By the time she got there, it was almost 8:00 pm and I decided it was time to brave the freeways. Kyle was stranded in Tigard at JJ's apartment because his car couldn't make it in the snow, so we started to head south to get him and then go home... it SUCKED! Portland was like a parking lot, we didn't get to JJ's until 11:30 and then we still had to trek home to Beaverton. And this is after I worked for 10 hours and poor Chelsea had been traveling for hours to visit us! I felt terrible! We finally got home around 12:30 (I got off work at 5:30), thank goodness I had the next day off because I was exhausted!

Chels and I slept in and had a lazy morning... after eating breakfast we went shopping in the afternoon, and when Kyle got off work we did dinner and a movie. It was really nice to have some personal time to spend with her, it's been a long time since we had such an extended period of time to hang out with just eachother... just sister time! :) Kyle and I both had to work New Year's Eve, but my parents came down in the afternoon so they were there by the time we got off work! We ate dinner and exchanged Christmas gifts, and by that time the Halls (plus Lindsey and Brittney) had arrived. We had a really fun New Year's Eve; eating, drinking, playing games, and hanging out until midnight rolled around. After ringing in the New Year, everyone pretty much went to bed, we were all pretty tired! The next day was all about college football; the Ducks played Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, and it was a good game but unfortunately Oregon lost. :( There's always next year though!

I can't believe 2010 is here already... time is really flying! This is going to be such a special year for Kyle and I, we've really looked forward to it's arrival. Now it's time for decorating, baby showers, childbirth classes... let the baby craziness begin! I'm sorry I never officially announced this, but Kyle and I are registered at Babies R Us and Target. Our theme is ladybugs, we picked the ladybug theme from Kidsline. It's going to be super cute! :)

At 30 weeks (75% done!), baby is 17 inches long and over 3 pounds in weight; getting bigger every day! Baby's brain is also getting bigger every day, preparing for life outside the womb. It's starting to take on tasks previously delegated to other parts of the body, like temperature regulation. Now baby will start shedding lanugo, which is the downy, soft body hair that has been keeping her warm up to the is point. She won't be fuzzy anymore when she's born!

My last doctor's appointment went just fine as usual, the only thing is my bloodwork showed I'm pretty anemic so I've had to start supplementing with iron pills. Not a big deal though, I passed all my other tests with flying colors! Now every appointment my doctor is starting to take me through the process of what to expect when we get to the hospital, pain management, labor, etc... it's been kind of a wake up call! I mean, obviously you know it's coming, but really getting down to it and talking about it makes you think... wow, I'm going to actually have to do this soon! I'm not really looking forward to labor, but I also can't wait at the same time. :)

Hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Year's!